Journal

Monday, December 5, 2011

Despite my rousing pep talk last week, I'm feel rather "blah" right now. This weekend was especially rough. You see, I believe I have what is called SAD. I've never gotten any sort of official diagnosis - and if I do indeed have the disorder, it is quite mild - but the point is that, come winter time, I get quite curmudgeonly for apparently no reason at all. Such is how I feel today.

The good news is that, from experience, I know it'll pass. Usually runs its course in a week or two.

Until then, motivation is a highly sought after commodity, and everything I do sucks way more than usual. I've read a lot about Depression and its relation to artists because the topic fascinates me. In past times, people often weren't considered real artists unless they were super-depressed. I'd like to think that we have a bit more enlightened view these days, but there still seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about Depression.

Of interest to writers (and perhaps readers), I read a study where the studied writing samples from Depressives. They had people write things both during "good" days and "bad" days. Then, they asked both the writer to rate their own work, and others to rate it. There were several things the found. First, Depression seems to have no effect on writing quality (output is another thing). Most people could not tell when writing was done on "good" days or "bad" days. Also, inevitably, the writer would think otherwise. Obviously, everything done on a "bad" day was awful. Though, objectively, it really wasn't.

I like to give myself a bit of a break when I'm in one of these black moods. So I took the weekend off. Yep, didn't get anything done. It was nice, but I feel really guilty about it. I should have been editing. Realistically, though, I'm not going to get anything back from my editors before Christmas... so why am I rushing? I could take weekends off and still get my first pass done. Thus, you may see me back off the editing goal a bit on my Wednesday check-in. I've been pushing myself hard and the stress is getting to me... and the holidays are already stressful.

Be good to your muse and she'll be good to you, they say. Whoever they are. I guess I'll listen.